Unraveling the truth behind today’s global migration statistics

A migrant today is anyone who crosses an international border. Beyond this basic definition, ways of classifying migration vary considerably. Does a day trip count? A month-long visit? Should students, tourists, and business travelers be considered migrants? To these questions can be added the usual problems associated with statistics, from poor record keeping to distortion by politicians.

What we do know is that the number of migrants worldwide has been rising steadily in recent decades, nearly doubling from 153 million in 1990 to 281 million in 2020, the most recent year for which the UN has published its global tally. As a share of the total population, however, there are not many more migrants today than in the past. The world’s population has increased by almost three billion in the past thirty years, meaning that the proportion of people migrating has remained relatively constant. In 2020, about 3.6% of all recorded citizens were born in a different country; thirty years earlier, it was 2.9%.

While this percentage could well fluctuate in the future, the overall number of people on the planet may be approaching its peak. The pace of global population growth is slowing after a period of rapid increase — from 2.5 billion people in 1950 to 5.3 billion in 1990, to today’s figure of 8 billion. The world’s population is expected to reach somewhere around 9.5 billion in the middle of this century, then fall to below current levels by the end of it.

A numbers game

Migration statistics should be regarded with great wariness. Not only are they notoriously difficult to collect and analyze, but they are also vulnerable to manipulation for political purposes.

Countries define and count migrants in different ways. Some measure a stay or period of absence from day one, others only after a year. Some add estimates of undocumented travelers to their overall tally of migrants, while others do not. There is no border control among the twenty-nine “Schengen” countries of Europe, for example, so a large amount of guesswork is necessarily involved. 

Even the richest countries are unable to measure migration accurately. The United Kingdom is one of many places that record entry and not departure. This results in significant discrepancies between reported figures for immigration and those for emigration. For example, Poland’s records of its migrants to the UK show far lower numbers than the British statistics reveal — and neither of the two is likely to be accurate.

Often figures vary wildly depending on who you ask. The Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs says that there were about 200,000 Bulgarians in the UK as of January 2019. Yet at the time the UK’s Office of National Statistics put the figure of Bulgarian-born people living in the country at 110,000.

Distinguishing between travel with the intent to settle and a journey made for tourism, business, or study is not easy, even with the help of specific visas, entry cards, and permits. We have much more accurate data on the flow of goods than on the movement of humans across borders.

Where are the migrants?

Of the estimated 281 million migrants in 2020, over two-thirds were workers, of whom over a half (59%) were men and two-thirds were working in high-income countries.

Europe is currently the main destination for migrants, hosting 87 million, or almost a third, of the total number worldwide. Very close behind is Asia, where there are an estimated 86 million migrants, or 30% of the total. About 59 million (20%) live in North America and 25 million (9%) in Africa — although the statistics regarding border crossings between Africa’s 52 countries are particularly unreliable, so this last figure is likely to be far higher.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, migration has doubled in the past fifteen years to 15 million people (5% of the global migrant population), although these too are­ significant underestimates given the scale of undocumented flows between Central American countries and recent emigration from ­Venezuela.

Geography and population sizes explain some statistical features. The extremely large, diverse, and sparsely inhabited region of Oceania has the highest proportion of migrants, with about 22% of those living in one country being born in another. By comparison, migrants constitute 16% of the population of North America and 12% of Europe’s.

The US is home to the largest absolute number of migrants — 51 million, or 15% of the total — with most originating in Mexico, India, China, and the Philippines, in that order. Over 11 million migrants have entered the US from Mexico, with the border between the two accounting for the most recorded crossings globally.

The US is followed by Germany, which has 16 million migrants, constituting 19% of its population. Saudi Arabia is the third-largest destination: the 13.5 million migrants living there make up 38% of its population, with India, Indonesia, and Pakistan as its top three origin countries.

As a share of its population, however, the United Arab Emirates hosts the most. About 88% of people living in the UAE are foreign-born. Around 3.8 million Indians work in the country, with over a million coming from Kerala and half a million from Tamil Nadu state.

Forced displacement

The UN Refugee Agency estimates that in the second half of 2023 there were 114 million migrants forcibly displaced due to persecution, conflict, violence, and violations of human rights. By the end of June 2024, that figure had increased to 122.6 million.

Of these, 35.3 million were refugees under the agency’s mandate, 5.9 million were Palestinian refugees registered with UNRWA, 62.5 million were internally displaced people, and 5.4 million were asylum seekers waiting for legal recognition of their need for protection.

Three quarters of all refugees were hosted by low-income and middle-income countries. The 45 least developed countries, as classified by the UN, were providing asylum to 20% of the total.

Most refugees flee to the closest place of relative safety. Nearly 70% of people in need of international protection live in neighboring countries. Turkey and Iran host the most refugees globally — about 3.4 million each, mostly from Syria in Turkey and from Afghanistan and Iraq in the case of Iran. The US receives the most individual applications for asylum, but it ends up hosting a relatively small number of refugees.

Together with the estimated 6.8 million displaced Palestinians, more than half of all refugees and others in need of international protection originate from just three countries — Syria (6.5 million), Afghanistan (6.1 million), and Ukraine (5.7 million). The conflict in Sudan is expected to add considerably to their number.

Some 1.7 million of these Palestinian refugees are living in Gaza. As a result of Israel’s military retaliation for the horrific events of October 7, 2023, their homes and communities have been destroyed. At the time of writing, over 30,000 had been killed, while many more had been injured and faced starvation as well as further violence, creating new waves of refugees.

In the three years since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, more than 14 million Ukrainians have been forced to flee their homes, triggering one of the worst refugee crises since 1945. Their reception in much of Europe was in marked contrast to the responses to previous waves of refugees from other parts of the world. The fact that Ukrainians look much like other Europeans and are perceived to share closer religious and historical ties means they have enjoyed a warmer welcome than Syrian and Afghan refugees and been spared the hostility shown to African migrants.

The missing and the dead

Globally, the overwhelming majority of migrants make authorized border crossings. Undocumented or irregular migration, however, is by its nature difficult to quantify as it often involves clandestine, perilous journeys made by desperate people.

At least 60,000 people have died in the past ten years in the attempt to migrate to another country, with nearly half disappearing without trace, their bodies never found. In 2023, the deadliest year for migrants in the past decade, an estimated 8,565 people died trying to reach their destinations. The Mediterranean is perhaps the biggest graveyard for missing migrants, with tens and at times hundreds of thousands of desperate migrants attempting to cross every year.

A tiny fraction of the bodies of migrants who drown at sea are recovered; most of these “invisible shipwrecks” vanish without trace. Among those seeking to enter the US from Mexico, thousands disappear or die each year because of kidnappings, vehicle accidents, snake bites, dehydration, and starvation.

To leave or stay?

Around 97% of the world’s population do not become international migrants. Most people are not prepared or able to venture into the unknown. They may prefer the comfort of their familiar surroundings or be prevented from traveling abroad by poverty, age, ill health, or other restrictions.

The fact that there is vastly more migration within countries than migration between countries also reflects the difficulties of crossing borders and the desire of many people to remain close to home. It is hard enough to move within one’s own country; moving abroad is harder and riskier still.

Migration is often an enormous sacrifice taken on behalf of others. In many poor communities the eldest sons — or daughters, as is more often the case in the Philippines — may be encouraged to migrate to support their families. The perilous journeys, hardship, and loneliness migrants frequently endure on behalf of others is testimony to their self-sacrifice and courage. 

Refugees and other forcefully displaced people tend to travel as short a distance as possible so they can return when it is safe to do so. Anywhere from a fifth to a half of all migrants return home or move to a third country within five years. This may be because they have saved money, gained a qualification, or are coming back to settle, raise a family, or retire.

Migrants are unusually prepared to take risks and make sacrifices. These qualities prevented the extinction of our species during its early evolution, when threatened by droughts and famine. They lie at the heart of the extraordinary progress made by humans since. Though migrants are in the minority, we should not assume that being sedentary is somehow better or more natural. Migrants may be simultaneously very ordinary and highly exceptional people.